


Paper Moon

by scullydubois



Category: A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:58:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7928701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullydubois/pseuds/scullydubois
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lost moments from the life of Blanche DuBois.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Moon

~“They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at— Elysian Fields!”~

 

 

There is dirt on her hand. She supposes it must have come from brushing her hand against the side of the streetcar when she was struggling to pull her suitcase up the steps. It couldn’t have come from the conductor; she made sure not to touch his hand when she handed him her fare, although she wanted to. Oh, she wanted to.

Blanche pulls a silver case from her purse and extracts a cigarette to place between her teeth. If she keeps her left hand poised artfully near the cigarette she won’t be able to see the smear of dirt. 

She doesn’t have a lighter on her, she realizes, but it’s just as well. Blanche has scarcely spoken to anyone since she left Laurel early this morning, and the silence surrounding her has left her on edge. A dark-haired man with broad shoulders and a square jaw is seated at the end of the bench Blanche is occupying, leaning his head back against his entwined fingers as smoke curls lazily from a cigarette hanging from his lips. 

Blanche waits until the streetcar’s next stop before she slides down the bench to sit next to him. “Excuse me, honey,” she murmurs, making her voice low and sultry, the way the men in Laurel like it. She hopes New Orleans men will prove just as receptive. “Have you got a light?”

It’s funny, almost, the way she can predict his movements before he makes them. First the almost imperceptible tilt of the head as he breathes the scent of her jasmine perfume, then the sudden realization of how close she is to him. The gaze that roves across her face, lingering on her lips. All of it heightened by the late afternoon shadows she knows are flickering across her skin as the streetcar trundles between buildings. 

“Well, sure,” the dark-haired man says slowly, spreading his lips in a gap-toothed smile as he reaches into a pocket. “For you, anything.”  

He touches the flame to the tip of Blanche’s cigarette and she inhales gratefully, pulling smoke into her lungs and exhaling it in a soft sigh that draws a chuckle from the dark-haired man. Blanche waits as he tucks the lighter back into his pocket, half expecting him to try to strike up a conversation with her, but he says nothing and she is glad of it. 

They ride in silence for several blocks, and Blanche finds herself soothed by the cigarette and the rhythm of the streetcar. They call this one Desire, she remembers, and such a strange name it is for a box on wheels that makes that _rattle-trap_ noise every time it hits a stretch of uneven ground. Still, the name doesn’t feel altogether incongruous; Blanche is starting to like the city as it looks from the streetcar’s windows, all these bright buildings and fleeting faces. It makes her heartbeat stutter, and she feels as though her chest has been filled with warm music. 

Then— rough fingers on her thigh, slipped, no doubt, through the side slit of her skirt. The dark-haired man is still leaning back on his part of the bench, but his hand rests now just above her knee, stroking the skin there as if he owns it. As if this is fair payment for the brief touch of lighter to cigarette.  

And her heartbeat melts into shame inside her chest and she snatches herself away from him, sliding as far down the bench as she can go and perching on the very edge. She grinds her cigarette into ash on the side of the bench and lets it fall over the edge of the streetcar’s open window. The conductor calls out the name of the next stop, and Blanche gazes out the window at the lengthening shadows, wishing she could disappear like the daylight. 

Desire slows to a stop at the next street corner and the man at the end of the bench gets off, glancing backward at her as he steps onto the pavement, eyebrows raised, a vulgar smile playing across his lips. Blanche pretends that she does not see him. 

She casts her glance around at the rest of the passengers, not sure what she’s looking for. A man at the end of the car removes a silver flask from his jacket pocket and unscrews the top. She watches him raise the flask to his lips and feels her own mouth water at the thought of liquor. 

It’s not as though she has never considered carrying a flask like that— the idea of having a little liquor with her at all times is, admittedly, appealing. It’s only…there is something so _common_ about keeping it concealed like that, tucked away in a purse or a pocket. Blanche likes her liquor the way it should be enjoyed, in clear crystal glasses and tall, shimmering bottles. It seems low, shameful even, to hide it. 

She longs, suddenly, for a bath, craving the comfortable sting of hot water running silkily down her arms, across her chest. She rubs at the smear of dirt on her hand, pressing harder this time, but still it won’t come away. It bothers her with an almost physical persistence and, absurdly, she feels mocked by it, a stain on the smooth expanse of her skin. 

“Change here for Cemeteries!” The conductor’s voice rings out through the car and Blanche flinches like someone jolted out of sleep. 

Blanche’s fingers tighten around the scrap of paper she’s been carrying in her fist all day, a fragment of one of Stella’s letters. She doesn’t want to disembark from Desire. The ride has all but shattered her nerves, and yet some part of herself is reluctant to leave it behind. 

She doesn’t know what she expected, but there turns out to be little difference between Cemeteries and Desire. This streetcar rattles just the same as the first, traversing the same kinds of narrow streets, taking in the same kinds of passengers. Six blocks Blanche is supposed to stay on the streetcar called Cemeteries, six blocks before she will step into Elysian Fields and see her sister again. _Stella, Stella, Stella for star_ , she thinks absently, smiling slightly.  

A young couple sits across the car from her, the woman with her cheek resting comfortably against the man’s shoulder. Blanche tries not to stare at them, but she can’t help it. They don’t even seem real. 

She can hear piano music playing in the distance and she closes her eyes to the blueness of it, a deep murky color that fills her with unaccountable sadness. The piano permeates the air here, wafting through this section of the city like a strong perfume, settling in people’s clothes and furniture so they can’t forget it. 

She opens her eyes when the music fades away, leaving only lingering notes laced with blue as it ebbs out of earshot. Across from her the young man is rubbing slow circles into the back of the woman’s yellow dress and murmuring something to her, his lips brushing the top of her head. She rests her hand on his knee, still and steady. The two of them look happy, drunk on each other’s affection.  

Blanche wishes vaguely that she mattered that much to someone, anyone, and yet she knows exactly what it takes to win that kind of affection from a man. She wonders what it would be like to be held by someone, only held, with no romance in it. Man or woman, it wouldn’t matter to her. All she wants is a pair of gentle arms to wrap herself in, the knowledge that there is someone, somewhere, who longs to protect her. Blanche has never been protected like this before, and the knowledge that she needs this fills her with a kind of shame that makes her thigh burn with the memory of the cigarette man’s callused fingers. 

Blanche rubs at the spot of dirt again, recklessly, and almost without meaning to, she finds herself digging her fingernails into the back of her hand as though the dirt is something that can be scratched away, peeled off. She pulls her fingers away and watches with detached interest as a thin line of red blooms through the patch of dirt, cutting it in half. It will still be visible even after the dirt has washed way and instantly, she regrets ever having touched the spot. 

“Next stop, Elysian Fields!” the conductor calls out, and Blanche wraps her hand tightly around the handle of her suitcase, squeezing until her knuckles turn white. The couple across from her are looking at her, and she knows they must be thinking, _What a sight she is_.  

When Cemeteries pulls to a halt, Blanche can hear the piano music again. It’s full of colors, she realizes now, not just blue but all shades of lights and darks, all blending together. The music envelops her, pulling her in, and as she steps off the streetcar into Elysian Fields, it swallows her whole. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
